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Recap of the Schneide Dev Brunch 2015-06-14

A week ago, we held another Schneide Dev Brunch, a regular brunch on the second sunday of every other (even) month, only that all attendees want to talk about software development and various other topics. So if you bring a software-related topic along with your food, everyone has something to share. The brunch was well attented this time with enough stuff to talk about. We probably digressed a little bit more than usual. As usual, a lot of topics and chatter were exchanged. This recapitulation tries to highlight the main topics of the brunch, but cannot reiterate everything that was spoken. If you were there, you probably find this list inconclusive:

Distributed Secret Sharing

Ever thought about an online safe deposit box? A place where you can store a secret (like a password or a certificate) and have authorized others access it too, while nobody else can retrieve it even if the storage system containing the secret itself is compromised? Two participants of the Dev Brunch have developed DUSE, a secure secret sharing application that provides exactly what the name suggests: You can store your secrets without any cleartext transmission and have others read them, too. The application uses the Shamir’s Secret Sharing algorithm to implement the secret distribution.

The application itself is in a pre-production stage, but already really interesting and quite powerful. We discussed different security aspects and security levels intensily and concluded that DUSE is probably worth a thorough security audit.

Television series

A main topic of this brunch, even when it doesn’t relate as strong with software engineering, were good television series. Some mentioned series were “The Wire”, a rather non-dramatic police investigation series with unparalleled realism, the way too short science-fiction and western crossover “Firefly” that first featured the CGI-zoom shot and “True Detective”, a mystery-crime mini-series with similar realism attempts as The Wire. “Hannibal” was mentioned as a good psychological crime series with a drift into the darker regions of humankind (even darker than True Detective). And finally, while not as good, “Silicon Valley”, a series about the start-up mentality that predominates the, well, silicon valley. Every participant that has been to the silicon valley confirms that all series characters are stereotypes that can be met in reality, too. The key phrase is “to make the world a better place”.

Review of the cooperative study at DHBW

A nice coincidence of this Dev Brunch was that most participants studied at the Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Karlsruhe, so we could exchange a lot of insights and opinions about this particular form of education. The DHBW is an unique mix of on-the-job training and academic lectures. Some participants gathered their bachelor’s degree at the DHBW and continued to study for their master’s degree at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). They reported unisono that the whole structure of studies changes a lot at the university. And, as could be expected from a master’s study, the level of intellectual requirement raises from advanced infotainment to thorough examination of knowledge. The school of thought that transpires all lectures also changes from “works in practice” to “needs to work according to theory, too”. We concluded that both forms of study are worth attending, even if for different audiences.

Job Interview

A short report of a successful job interview at an upcoming german start-up revealed that they use the Data Munging kata to test their applicants. It’s good to see that interviews for developer positions are more and more based on actual work exhibits and less on talk and self-marketing skills. The usage of well-known katas is both beneficial and disadvantageous. The applicant and the company benefit from realistical tasks, while the number of katas is limited, so you could still optimize your appearance for the interview.

Following personalities

We talked a bit about the notion of “following” distinguished personalities in different fields like politics or economics. To “follow” doesn’t mean buying every product or idolizing the person, but to inspect and analyze his or her behaviour, strategies and long-term goals. By doing this, you can learn from their success or failure and decide for yourself if you want to mimick the strategy or aim for similar goals. You just need to be sure to get the whole story. Oftentimes, a big personality maintains a public persona that might not exhibit all the necessary traits to fully understand why things played out as they did. The german business magazine Brand Eins or the english Offscreen magazine are good starting points to hear about inspiring personalities.

How much money is enough?

Another non-technical question that got quite a discussion going was the simple question “when did/do you know how much money is enough?”. I cannot repeat all the answers here, but there were a lot of thoughtful aspects. My personal definition is that you have enough money as soon as it gets replaced as the scarcest resource. The resource “time” (as in livetime) is a common candidate to be the replacement. As soon as you don’t think in money, but in time, you have enough money for your personal needs.

Basic mechanics of company steering

In the end, we talked about start-ups and business management. When asked, I explained the basic mechanics of my attempt to steer the Softwareschneiderei. I won’t go into much detail here, but things like the “estimated time of death” (ETOD) are very important instruments that give everyone in the company a quick feeling about our standings. As a company in the project business, we also have to consider the difference between “gliding flight projects” (with continuous reward) and “saw tooth projects” with delayed reward. This requires fundamentally different steering procedures as any product manufacturer would do. The key characteristic of my steering instruments is that they are directly understandable and highly visible.

Epilogue

As usual, the Dev Brunch contained a lot more chatter and talk than listed here. The number of attendees makes for an unique experience every time. We are looking forward to the next Dev Brunch at the Softwareschneiderei. And as always, we are open for guests and future regulars. Just drop us a notice and we’ll invite you over next time.